Politics & Government

Avella Hosts First Town Hall as Senator

Residents Complain to City Agencies of Illegal Conversions, Traffic Safety Issues

State Sen. Tony Avella, D-Bayside, and representatives from several city agencies fielded questions on everything from illegal conversions to accidents at a Little Neck intersection during the legislator’s first town hall meeting since taking office in January.

During the meeting, which was held at Bellerose’s P.S. 172, the senator told attendees that he would put pressure on city agencies to respond to the complaints of residents in his district.

“If it’s your problem, it’s my problem,” Avella said. “When agencies do their jobs, I support them. If they don’t, I’ll be on their backs. I have no problem making waves.”

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The senator said he believed the city often did not enforce its own policies on illegal conversions and that the Department of Buildings did not do enough to prevent developers from building out-of-character homes in neighborhoods.

“The DOB is the worst agency in the history of the city,” Avella said. “We have to stay on the DOB’s back for enforcement. Nothing hurts our quality of life worse than when a monstrosity is built in the neighborhood.”

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Anthony Iuliano, a DOB spokesman, said the agency investigates all illegal conversion complaints. But an estimated 40 percent of the agency’s complaints on conversions come from Queens residents, he said.

“If the community believes we don’t go out and take a look, they are misinformed,” he said.

Several of the meeting’s attendees called for increased safe measures along the Little Neck Parkway near the Grand Central Parkway.

“In the year to date, from 250th Street to Little Neck Parkway, there have been six accidents,” said Joseph Courtesis, deputy inspector for the 105th Precinct. “That’s not a huge number. We’ve issued 34 summonses in that area this year.”

Nathan Gray, a spokesman for the city’s Department of Transportation, said the agency studied the area to determine whether new traffic signals should be installed after community residents complained of heavy traffic and accidents.

“We’ve looked at the traffic volume and, unfortunately, we found that it’s not warranted,” he said. “But we’ll look at it again.”

Residents said they also wanted the city’s Police Department to have more of a presence in northeast Queens, suggesting foot patrols for the district. But Courtesis said he did not believe this would likely come to fruition.

“With budget cuts, I personally don’t anticipate us coming to the level we had in the early 1990s when we were hiring hand over fist and had more officers than we knew what to do with,” he said. “We don’t have foot patrols anymore. We used to have community police units, which would handle smaller quality of life issues – noise complaints and all that.”

The town hall meeting was Avella’s first as a senator in the district, which includes Douglaston, Little Neck, Bayside, Bellerose, Jamaica Estates, Floral Park, Glen Oaks, Whitestone, Flushing, Queens Village, College Point and Hollis.


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